Caribe Hilton

I was worried about this hotel before checking in because of the negative reviews, and unfortunately, they turned out to be true. We stayed for seven nights during winter break. We’ve traveled to many islands and resorts, and this was easily our least favorite stay due to the consistently poor service. The housekeeping staff did a great job and were the highlight of our stay. One positive experience was the bartender by the pool, who was great and provided friendly service. Unfortunately, the rest of the main lobby bar staff seemed too busy to acknowledge guests—we had to wave down three different servers just to order drinks, and the service was terrible. In addition, the hotel itself is old and the resort feels run down, which further took away from the overall experience. Overall, the lack of attentive service and the condition of the property impacted our stay, and I definitely would not recommend this hotel.

We stayed here as a family and unfortunately had a very disappointing experience. Upon arrival, we were placed in a room type that was not what we had paid for. We booked an ocean-view room through Chase Rewards, but due to a reservation mix-up we were given a resort-view room instead. To address this initial issue, the hotel agreed to let us check out two nights early and refunded those two nights. More concerning were additional issues that arose during the stay and were not addressed in real time. The original room was extremely dirty, with visible dust on surfaces and in corners throughout the room. We raised these cleanliness concerns multiple times with the front desk, but no corrective action was taken. On night four, we were moved to an ocean-view room. While we were excited about the change, this room had a broken glass shower door. Each time the shower was used, water flooded the bathroom floor, creating a dangerously slippery situation. Despite notifying the hotel, no one came to repair the door during the two nights we remained there. At checkout, after raising concerns about the unresolved shower door, the hotel waived the resort fees for the five nights we stayed. While this gesture was appreciated, it came only at checkout and did not address the lack of cleanliness or the unresolved maintenance issue during the stay itself. Overall, the lack of cleanliness, delayed maintenance, and poor follow-through significantly impacted what should have been a relaxing family vacation.

We always have a great time here, and the service is always excellent. We got to see Hiram A., our favorite bartender at Bagua. Love the beach and the pool, and the access to OSJ. Go see for yourself!

For the whopping $4,674 I paid for my family of four to stay here for a week, you would have thought gold would have flowed out of the faucets. Instead, you get lukewarm water and nothing but hassle. Issues: Ingress /egress is terrible: the designated Uber drop off point, where most come with their big bags from the airport, is far away and UP A STAIRCASE from the entrance. No ramp there, so good luck wrangling your bags up the stairs. Showers to rinse feet from beach don’t work anywhere, so you get the fun experience of tracking very thick, sticky sand into your hotel room. There are no bathrooms anywhere near the beach, so you either have to trek all the way back through the lobby to go to one or go almost all the way back and walk downstairs to a dungeon of a bathroom. Bathrooms were often not clean, not well appointed and awkward to be walking into in your bathing suit in the hotel lobby. It’s a Hunger Games situation at the beach. Unless you get out there at 6:45 am and wait until they open the doors at 7, you can’t sit anywhere near the ocean (or the pool either). And then when you do that, half the chairs are already “taken” by staff looking to sell them to the highest bidder or who were paid off the night before to save them and set them up. Then, once you get your spot, staff come along and look for people who want chairs. They then accept payment to get more chairs and set them up RIGHT IN FRONT of the people already sitting there, utterly blocking your beach view and crowding you in. We watched this happen and then they tried to do it to us, but I told them we’d go right the the front office about it and surprise, all of a sudden the staff wasn’t going to do it anymore. I had to threaten this 3x in one day. The pay to play system when you’re already paying this much is disgusting. Beach and pool chairs are abysmal — they are old and missing slats everywhere, so they were super uncomfortable. Not cushioned or clean — not 5 star hotel chairs. The beach was teeny tiny and the snorkeling was less than meh. Dead coral and a few fish. Do yourself a favor and make the 8 min walk down the block to Escambron beach (not the first beach right next to the Hilton, but keep going along the grassy path to the wide open beach). Beautiful cove with much better snorkeling. The place was understaffed everywhere during the busiest week of the year (Xmas to New Years) - we were told in each casual lunch spot that there would be a one-hour wait for food due to only having one waiter each. Hardly anyone came around to the pool and beach chairs to take food or drink orders. They also seemed understaffed and overwhelmed at the front desk. The beach itself, besides being tiny, is dark course sand with tons of seaweed and a view of big burned out hotel right behind the it. This sounds petty, but it was absolutely FREEZING in the corridor into the garden wing all the time. So you come off the resort set and cold bc it wasn’t that warm this week, and have to RUN through it because it’s like a subzero fridge. Then you get to your room and have barely warm water that comes out as a trickle and it never warms up. The rooms are … fine…? But definitely not worth this money. I have had better rooms in a Holiday Inn. The beds are DOUBLE, not queen. A family of four has very little room (with teenagers) and there are almost no hooks or places to hang anything. Quite a problem with wet bathing suit. So the teeny porch becomes the place you have to hang those. Hosekeeping- mostly fine except one day we called when we left around 12:30pm to say we left later than usual they said they’d make sure they had room cleaned. 4:15 no cleaning. Called again, 5:00 no cleaning. Called again and went to front desk. Finally 5:40 they came. We were out of the room and couldn’t shower until 6:15. Forget watching a football game in the late afternoon or evening in the bar area, bc music will be pumping so loud you can’t even talk to your friend sitting right next to you over beers. Terrible continental breakfast, $20 more for hot breakfast which looked just as awful. Again, have had better breakfast at a Best Western. Finally the kicker - fireworks. They were set off right over sitting area. We moved way back when we started getting hit by ash even though we hadn’t been sitting where they said it might be a hazard in the first place. But still my 13 yo daughter and my husband got legit burned by falling char. Like burned with marks and pain. And then it took them 15 more min to get ice packs which NEVER GOT COLD. I kid you not. And not one person said they were sorry. The best days of our trip were spent entirely off-resort in all kinds of other beautiful PR locales. One and only one positive: the concierge who helped us get a new rental car when our first company didn’t have one. She was helpful and lovely (Liliyana I believe?) and she got us the gift of getting off this terrible, overpriced resort. Drive to Rincon - worth it! We have traveled extensively and know what 5 star looks like. Find a real 5-star place in SJ or save money and get the same amenities for much, much cheaper.

Simple accessible and close to all Old San Juan attractions. A plus is the beach access and pool with a bar. Staff is fantastic. As with most resorts, it is on the expensive side. Family, kids, friendly! Rooms are spacious.